New York City Department of Education

News about New York City Department of Education, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

Chronology of Coverage

Feb. 8, 2015

New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina has rolled back many policies adopted by Bloomberg administration, but has yet to clearly define her strategy, including how she plans to turn around city's failing schools. MORE

Jan. 15, 2015

Carmen Farina, chancellor for New York City Schools, announces plans to greatly expand dual-language programs in public elementary, middle and high schools starting in 2015-16 school year; change is intended to capitalize on city's diversity and perhaps to draw more middle-class families to poorer schools; majority of programs will be oriented toward Spanish, though several other languages will also be included. MORE

Jan. 14, 2015

Jim Dwyer About New York column discusses details of case in which occupational therapist Debra Fisher was suspended without pay for 30 days from her job at Public School 333; holds Education department is blatantly wrong and that charges are grossly trumped up; notes pro bono lawyers are representing Fisher in suit demanding that city overturn charges and clear her record. MORE

Jan. 7, 2015

New York City Education Dept plans to announce that it will lift ban of cellphones in schools, which was put in place by former Mayor Michael R Bloomberg; ban was troublesome to parents who were unable to contact their children. MORE

Dec. 2, 2014

New York City comptroller’s office audit of 10 locations under jurisdiction of Education Dept reveals that lack of centralized inventory control system has allowed more than 2,000 computers and laptops to go unaccounted for; at Boys and Girls Highs School in Brooklyn, one of city's most troubled schools, 78 laptops and iPads were found unopened, some purchased in 2011. MORE

Nov. 27, 2014

New York City Comptroller Scott M Stringer says city has missed out on as much as $120 million since being suspended from E-rate federal technology program in 2011 due to investigation into Education Department, and that figure could reach $300 million by 2018; inquiry was prompted by allegations that former city technology consultant Willard Lanham was stealing money from department. MORE

Nov. 26, 2014

Joint report by Mark G Peters, Department of Investigation commissioner, and Richard J Condon, special commissioner of investigation for city schools, finds Mayor Bill de Blasio’s aides violated state law and city regulations by holding closed-door meeting with members of Communications Workers of America in public school building, since such meetings must be nonexclusive; de Blasio says press should have been admitted to meeting and that mistake will not happen again. MORE

Nov. 21, 2014

Jim Dwyer About New York column focuses on plight of 19-year-old Washington Heights high school athlete Jason Puello, who is deemed ineligible to play basketball his senior year because of his age; lawyers for Puello are suing Education Dept, arguing that basing eligibility on when students' birthdays fall on calendar causes inequity among athletes depending on what sports are in season. MORE

Nov. 6, 2014

Federal investigation into Princeton University's sexual misconduct and discrimination policies finds that school has not met the standards set forth in Title IX; Education Department's Office of Civil Rights reports that university failed to provide prompt and fair response to allegations of sexual misconduct. MORE

Oct. 22, 2014

New York Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina replaces eight of city's 32 district superintendents. MORE

Oct. 11, 2014

Bernard Gassaway resigns as principal of Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn; criticizes New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the Department of Education for not having a plan to help struggling schools improve. MORE

Oct. 1, 2014

New York City schools chancellor Carmen Farina says city is overhauling its system for evaluating schools, de-emphasizing test scores in favor of measures like the strength of the curriculum and school environment, and doing away with an overall A-through-F grade for each school. MORE

Sep. 29, 2014

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration plans to release new school discipline code, part of larger initiative to examine school safety, discipline, suspensions and arrests; expected changes mirror national move away from zero-tolerance policies regarding misbehavior in schools. MORE

Sep. 7, 2014

Ginia Bellafante Big City column notes focus Mayor Bill de Blasio's prekindergarten program has placed on progressive learning strategies; points to studies showing that such instruction early in life can promote higher learning aspiration later in life; questions, however, how city's educators will manage to maintain progressive learning atmosphere while reducing reading deficits and keeping an eye to future standardized testing. MORE

Aug. 31, 2014

New York City Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina describes her typical Sunday routine. MORE

Aug. 28, 2014

Office of New York City Comptroller Scott M Stringer says Education Department, with one week before school begins, has delivered for review only 141 of more than 500 contracts with organizations that will be teaching prekindergarten classes; department has made repeated requests for documents. MORE

Aug. 15, 2014

New York State Education Department releases results that show percentage of elementary- and middle-school students passing statewide math exams inched up in 2014 while reading scores remained flat; this is second year that state administered exams aligned with Common Core standards. MORE

Jul. 9, 2014

Directors of dozens of independently run prekindergarten programs in New York City say they cannot compete with salary and benefits offered by Education Department, and fear drain of teachers; city is aiming to provide up to 53,000 full-day prekindergarten seats in fall 2014, more than double amount in 2013, with 40 percent of seats in public schools. MORE

Jun. 18, 2014

New York Schools Chancellor Carmen Farina plans to preserve hallmarks of city's gifted programs, immensely popular classes and schools that draw high achievers but have been criticized as shutting out low-income children; advocates hoped she would overhaul the programs, which they see as a critical front in the effort to reduce inequality in the school system. MORE

Apr. 22, 2014

Number of New York City students placed on waiting lists for kindergarten has dropped by half in current school year as Education Dept uses new strategy for matching students with schools; large number of 5-year-olds, however, still have not gained admission to any of their preferred schools, an outcome certain to frustrate families jockeying for seats at some of the city’s most coveted kindergarten programs. MORE

Apr. 10, 2014

New York City's Education Department, in break with data-driven policies of former Mayor Michael R Bloomberg, moves to reduce role of standardized exams in deciding which students to hold back each year; under new policy, test scores will still be used in decisions, but they will not be dominant factor. MORE

Mar. 8, 2014

Cheon Park, man who ran preschool programs for developmentally disabled children, pleads guilty on charges of mail fraud in case that became showcase example of corruption in New York State's special education financing system; in plea deal, Park agrees to pay $2.1 million in restitution to city's Education Department and accepts sentence of 51 to 63 months in prison. MORE

Feb. 19, 2014

Report by Richard J Condon, special commissioner of investigation for New York City school district, recommends that Marcella Sills, principal at Public School 106 in Queens, be banned from working for the Education Department; finds that she was often late or absent from work, but still received her full salary. MORE

Feb. 5, 2014

Lawrence Scott, New York City Education Department detective who was checking into accusations of misconduct by teacher Natalya Sokolson Gordon in Coney Island, Brooklyn, instead engaged in a sexually explicit phone relationship with her; Scott resigned and it has been recommended that Gordon be fired. MORE

Dec. 30, 2013

New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio is expected to appoint Carmen Farina, former top official of the New York City Education Department, as next schools chancellor; choice reflects de Blasio's desire to make radical changes away from educational policies of Mayor Michael R Bloomberg. MORE

Dec. 18, 2013

New York City Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has yet to pick a schools chancellor to carry out his liberal education agenda; pool of qualified candidates who follow de Blasio's own thinking on education is quite small, but now appears to include former Deputy Chancellor Carmen Farina. MORE

Oct. 26, 2013

New York State Education Department, responding to concerns that standardized exams in reading and math have become excessive and unwieldy, will seek to ease the burden of testing through series of modest changes; proposals are modest, but represent rare concession from state leaders, who have faced attacks from parents and teachers in recent weeks over the rollout of a tougher set of standards known as Common Core. MORE

Oct. 1, 2013

Michael Powell Gotham column on possibility that Common Cents, small nonprofit group that runs New York City’s grand penny harvest, is near death; holds that loss of Common Cents would mean loss of one of the nation’s most innovative programs for teaching elementary school children about philanthropy, and blames New York City's Education Department for situation. MORE

May. 27, 2013

Parents, teachers and students in New York are struggling to find alternatives to the traditional fund-raising snacks at bake sales and candy drives after city's Department of Education, as part of an anti-obesity drive, began restricting what treats can be sold at these events. MORE

May. 5, 2013

Many lawyers have found that if you have a legal complaint against New York City’s schools, you have to sue the Education Department or the Board of Education, which many thought was abolished. MORE

Apr. 14, 2013

Q&A with Robert Sanft, chief executive of the Office of Student Enrollment in New York City's Education Dept, who gives some insight into the process of placing tens of thousands of students each year in city schools. MORE

Mar. 1, 2013

New York City Education Dept plans to buy upgraded English and math textbooks and other materials for kindergarten through eighth grade to suit more rigorous Common Core academic standard that has been adopted by most states; costs, estimated at about $56 million, draw round of scrutiny at time of austere budgeting. MORE

Dec. 18, 2012

Nelson Ruiz of Pennsylvania pleads guilty to defrauding New York City Education Dept of $2.7 million that was intended for children with special needs, billing for sign-language interpretation services he never provided. MORE

Nov. 25, 2012

Passions have been running high in New York City neighborhoods that are weighing school rezoning proposals; 14 proposals are being considered citywide, an unusually high number, and the city's 32 Community Education Councils, groups that are normally fairly obscure, hold veto power over the Education Dept's rezoning plans. MORE

Nov. 5, 2012

New York City's 1.1 million public school students face an educational landscape drastically altered by Hurricane Sandy; 57 schools are too damaged to reopen, meaning that city must find new places for 34,000 students; 29 schools remain without power and although Education Dept officials hope to have all operating schools opened by Nov 7, some may have to function initially without heat. MORE

Oct. 18, 2012

New York City Education Department proposes new boundaries for some of Brooklyn’s most-sought-after elementary school zones, all in and near Park Slope, drawing anxious parents to an auditorium to see the redrawn map for the first time. MORE

Sep. 25, 2012

Mayor Michael R Bloomberg and Schools Chancellor Dennis M Walcott announce plans to open an Educare facility in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn; national program offers a cradle-to-kindergarten approach to education for very young children in poor neighborhoods; in a separate initiative, city will convert 4,000 half-day prekindergarten seats into full-day seats, mostly in poor areas. MORE

Sep. 1, 2012

Fund for Public Advocacy report shows that New York City's Education Dept has done a good job of preparing for significant special education reforms, but expresses concerns about whether schools have enough funding and teachers to carry out such changes; reforms are intended to mainstream special education students, except those with the most severe needs, allowing them to enroll in neighborhood zoned schools. MORE

Mar. 5, 2012

Michael Winerip On Education column on dismay of fifth-grade teachers at Public School 146 in Brooklyn when they receive unexpectedly dismal scores in numerical ratings from the city's Education Dept; says that if city officials were trying to demoralize and humiliate the workforce, they have done a terrific job; prior to the latest ratings, which now let students' test scores count for 40 percent of a teacher's evaluation, up from 20 percent, PS 146 teachers were considered among the the best the city offers. MORE

Dec. 9, 2011

New York State Education Department says it will move to close 12 of New York City's struggling schools and eliminate middle school grades at three others as part of two-step effort to weed out poorest-performing schools based on state exam scores; department is expected to make recommendations for further school closings. MORE

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